to (try) and cancel my Talk talk/Tiscali contract?

[youarekidding]

Because they are fuckers.

Keep changing direct debit date without warning or letter - I have told them writing on paper is what I need. This had led me to charges of £8 twice. Taking DD 2/3 days earlier than agreed date sometimes when bank said it goes after a weekend if the agreed date is a weekend.

AND, they have 'upgraded' my account 2 times, obviously because they get another 18 months and each time with the promise of a new router - not asked for but offered as faster. I have also rung on occasion to see where it is and been told a new one is ordered.

So where is the router?

I have had enough, AIBU to ring them up tomorrow, they are closed now, and tell them they have broken our contract by not sticking to the terms they offered and say I want to pull out of it?

BTW can I do that!!

[youarekidding]

AIBU?

I can take it.

[Nyx]

Good luck with that...my mum lives in the western isles of Scotland and Talk Talk charged her for internet access for almost a year before she realised (she thought they were charging her for the telephone). It took almost a month of writing and phoning to convince them that she didn't have internet access - she physically can't have internet access where she lives yet as the old fashioned BT telephone exchange isn't capable of it. I'm still fuming as she hasn't had any money back. They are thieves and robbers!

[Nyx]

In my opinion, of course.

[Trills]

YABU because you're not asking if you are being unreasonable, you are asking for advice.

(you did say you can take it)

Make sure you get through to the cancellations department (they probably call themselves the retentions department). They'll probably offer you half price for a few months or similar, and you have to be clear in your mind in advance what you will accept as a bribe to stay or whether you really just want to leave.

[KRITIQ]

I don't think many of the telecoms/broadband providers have much to boast about in the customer services department. I'm stuck with BT at work and we've wasted hours and hours and hours trying to sort out their cock ups, which happen with great regularity.

We have Talk Talk for phone and broadband - never any problems. I happened to be home yesterday and they phoned offering a "discount" and rattled off all the trimmings with it, then hurridly said there was just the simple matter of extending our contract for another 24 months. I said no thanks and put the phone down.

[aquafunf]

they are tossers, made SKY actually look quite good and i would have thought that impossible. i had the same thing with the direct debit. Thank god,the bloody thing stopped working and their engineer told us to go back to sky. so i quoted him loudly and got out of the rest of the contract.

good luck though. i would start the conversation with "can you tell me exactly how much you think i would owe you if i cancelled the contract now?" and negotiate from there.

[Alambil]

I just rang BT and got them to deal with the leaving talktalk stuff...

Much more simple!

[Trills]

Good point LewisFan - if you pick a new provider they will often take care of the transfer.

[readsalotgirl]

Talktalk are awful - we had no landline for a month in December altho broadband was working. "Customer services" are appalling - after 2 weeks I was told that it was "Force majeure, an Act of God" - thought my head was going to explode or that I would have seizure. Told chap in call centre that snow on the ground in December in NE Scotland was normal and he was to call me within 24 hours with a better excuse (he didn't). Amazingly once I contacted my MP it was fixed within 3 days !!!!. Get BT or whoever to do it for you - if you have broadband you must request a MAC code from Talktalk but they are legally obliged to provide it within 7 (I think)working days. Make sure you cancel direct debits.

[Bogeyface]

Good luck!

We were at the end of our contract and I cancelled it over the phone and in writing and (as I had read the horror stories) cancelled the DD myself and informed the bank that I do not authorise DDs from TalkTalk. They renewed the contract anyway and ended up with threatening me with debt collection for internet access I was getting from Sky.

Got it sorted in the end but it took ages, and only because I had copies of the letters I had sent. Oh and I put in writing that I was refusing to deal with them by phone so if they kept calling then it would be considered harrassment and I would report them. Guess what, they kept calling....

[Bogeyface]

Sadly, Sky couldnt deal with ours as we were cancelling our Sky too, and taking out another contract in (then) DPs name so that we could get a free Sky+ box that would have cost loads for me to upgrade.

[Minus273]

YANBU but all bb providers have awful customer service. BT have had my blood pressure through the roof this week. I have had no bb for a week because it takes 5 working days to reconnect after the phone line is connected. The only reason the phone line has only just been connected is that BT accidentally disconnected it in the first place (tbf the reconnected that within 24hr but are refusing to refund me line rental on that .

Sky told me I couldn't have bb at my old property because although they provided a service in my town I lived too far away from the exchange. Said exchange was 2 doors away.

nyx if it has been going on that long without resolution has your mum contacted Ofcom?

[TakeThisOneHereForAStart]

Talk Talk are the sperm of the devil (a phrase gifted to me from Damn You Autocorrect this afternoon).

I hate them. It's interesting that they are changing the date of your direct debit to suit themselves, but they flat out refused to change my SIL's by two days when she asked them to because she had changed jobs and gets paid two days later than before now. Apparently there is nothing they can do, the date is fixed and can never change.

We had signed up with them and they made a mistake with our direct debit details, so they could not take payment. Instead of contacting us they cut off our phone and broadband. I tried to make a call and was put through to customer abuse services. I said I would pay with my debit card and give them the correct details to take payment in future. We had been with them for one month and I was expecting to pay £21.00. But I wanted to check before I gave them the card details. They wouldn't tell me how much we owed because my DH had set up the contract. They expected me to just give them the card info and take whatever payment they wanted. They also suggested I guess the amount and that if I guessed correctly they could not say I was right but they would stay quiet rather than say I was wrong .

Turned out I would have been paying over £70, because their cock-up had made them decide to charge us for two months line rental by then and the had added a £30 connection charge to the bill because we had been cut off.

When I asked why they hadn't contacted us before they cut us off they claimed that they, as the utility company who provided us with phone and broadband, had no way of getting in touch. Except by phone or email, plus they had our address because they sent the sodding router to it.

We got out of our contract when we moved house and they tried to charge us a £50 fee for updating our details on our existing contract but also make us start a brand new 18 month prison sentence contract with them as new customers.

They were also unable to connect our phone or broadband for four months after we moved because they were busy. Eventually we told them they were unable to keep up their end of the contract and they let us go.

So yes, you can do it. We did it. Just stick to your guns and ask for the cancellations people rather than customer services.

[FabbyChic]

Nyx your mother can get the money back under the direct debit indemnity scheme. Every single penny. Tell her to go into her bank and tell them the money was not taken with her consent. She will have it back within 24 hours.

[Bogeyface]

BT are spectacularly awful too. We had BT before TT and they managed to swap our landline with someone elses for 3 weeks (locally, we didnt get the CTC helpline number or anything!)! We think it was an engineers mistake, which happens, we were ok about that. It was the fact that for 3 weeks, us and the other people had each others phone numbers and BT just couldnt be arsed to do anything about it. All we got was that it would be sorted out in due course. It was only after the other couple contacted a friend of theirs who was a high up MP (cabinet member at the time) that it got sorted. He actually rang us and spoke to us too, which was a weird experience!

They were lovely people and we spoke alot, we know lots about each other but we have never met and I wouldnt know them if they bit me on the bum :o

[youarekidding]

Thanks everyone. Going to brave the call now. after a coffee

trills I'm never sure since the thread police started patrolling.

It is advice I want but also to know if IBU to try and cancel - not just having a hissy fit. I did want the hard hat advice though because it's easy to loose perspective when your mad.

I had problems with BT too bogey THEY cancelled my landline not me, because when I moved there was no cable down in the street and that got delayed by 5 months - not my fault! I contuned paying DD to cover the connection charge and they decided to cancel the contract and charge me £165 for the priviledge , oh and took the £130 I had paid towards connection fee towards it. It was rectified easily so that made up for it - however I transferred to tiscali because of it and not this!

[BikeRunSki]

Good luck. I hate TalkTalk, their customer services are shocking and rude. I ended up sending them a cheque for £60 due to thier own cock up, to make them go away once, when DS (17 months at the time) was in hospital and no one knew what was up with him. They were ringing my mobile every hour to hassle me. They knew DS was ill. I had explained, written and emailed them what the situation was with our TT/Tiscali account, but no, hourly phone calls and blaming me was the way forward.

I will not be renewing my contract when it expires in Dec.

[throckenholt]

Good luck. I have heard from a number of people that TalkTalk can be a pain, and BT nearly as bad. I know a few people (us included) who have been with plusnet for a few years without any problems - might be worth giving them a try.

[youarekidding]

Well I rang

Went through to cancellations, confirmed my name address etc. Turns out router sent, not sure what happened to the othersthat had supposedly been sent BUT after going through problems and CS man reading back my adress they have the wrong house number. I asked how the hell that could happen when I have to confirm to to prove who I am??

So new router sent, DD set up from correct account - the one they were meant to have set 4 months previously, set from correct date as it should have been, and I have refund of bank cahrges and 2 months free line rental + some extra refund for compensation.

They really do not want me to cancel! I have told them that any hint of a problem I will go to OFCOM or equivelent company.

Watch this space!

[youarekidding]

Remembers PLUSNET for when contract expires.

[Dakiara]

Another recommendation for cancelling with TalkTalk then stopping the direct debit with your bank asap. Took me near four months to get back money when they continued to charge me for internet access for two months (and an attempt at a third DD charge too which was when we noticed) after leaving them for another provider. Got MAC code and did everything right so it should not have happened.

Course, now I am stuck with naff connection through a famous internet supplier cause they cannot be bothered to upgrade the exchange, but can't have it all! Am free of TalkTalk at least. ;)

[duckdodgers]

Bt arent as bad as Talk Talk........they are worse, much worse! Were with TT now and its bliss compared to the hell that was BT. Everything was fine until there was a problem with internet connection and dodgy reception on line. Trying to make the call centre in accept we had a problem took 3 months of stress and calls and limited service. Once they admited there was a fault the experience went form bad to worse - BT landlines call centre blames broadband and vice versa. Trying to get an engineer out required the patience of a saint, then visits were cancelled and so it went on.

I phoned a call centre in tears once because at 1 point we were phoning then daily (it wasnt just internet, we could hardly use our landline phone plus we had a BT internet phone that disconnected every time the internet did) and got a manager from landline involved who helped a bit.

Suffice to say by the time we got the fault fixed we were ready to cancel. We got it working - for 2 days.........and then they disconnected us alltogether! I wrotye a 9 page complaint letter and eventually recieved nearly £500 in compensation, apparantly I have the dubiosu claim that it was one of the worst cases of customer service they have ever had to deal with!!


I laugh at cold callers from BT now that wasnt to to go back!

[Step]

Agreed BT are tossers....

Engineer 1. You need a telegraph pole

2 weeks later

Engineer 2 you need some ducting (engineer 1 missed that)

another 10 days passes....

Engineer 3 arrives with no ducting... but doesn't matter as they've still not put the pole up.

10 more days pass and the pole eventually arrives, BT despite me saying it's erected don't believe me as the job's not been signed off on computer. So I was obviously seeing a tree and not a fucking great pole with BT written on it then.

2 days later they concede I m not blind and it is indeed a pole. Bloke will come out and wire up phone.....

5 days later bloke appears... he can't get up pole as he has no ladder!


almost 2 months later we get a phone. Yesterday they tell me I have to wait 10 days for broadband.


BT are shite.

[TalkTalkSupport]

HI All,

There appears to be a number of issues here that we need to address. If any custoewmr are experiencing issues which require account related support, such as changes billing etc, please join us on the TalkTalk members Forum where we can provide assistance.

@youarekidding In regards Direct Debit Date the billing date is a set day of the month. The Direct Debit will be taken a number of days after this. Due to weekends being non operational bank days there are some months where the extraction date will vary compared to others, this is most often where a Sunday occurs between the bill date and DD extraction date. Likewise Bank holidays also have this same effect.

However the Date of your DD will always be notified on your bill, so although this may change based on operational days at the time of billing you are notified what date the DD will be extracted and the Bill date is always consistently the same date every month.


@Nyx - If you consult the Code of Practice on the TalkTalk Website, this details the process to raise disputes. However in short if you have paid for a service you have not recieved you are entitled to claim this back as it can be proven the service was not supplied.

@Lewisfan, Trills and Readalot girl - This would dpeend on the service you are recieving and is only applicable to those with Wholesale Line Rental and IPstream Broadband (supplied via wholesale agreement between Open Reach and ISP's).

If you are on TT LLU (usually with broadband included in your tariff) then not all ISP can transfer you directly and you may have to request a Return to Donor first, to migrate the line back to the Open Reach network. THis would depend on the new ISP's ability to place a direct LLU transfer order. As not all ISPs can do this, strictly speaking the advice to let the new ISP handle everything isnt universally applicable to all. Also MAC codes are only relevant to those with IPstream Broadband. LLU operations do not require MACs due to the Return to Donor Process.

@BikeRunSki - Im sorry to hear of your issues at such a time. Depending on what the calls were in relevance to we can take necessary actions regarding this. If you join the TalkTalk Members Forum we can conduct more in depth investgations into this and assist you further.

Regards


Mark
TalkTalk Online Community Executive
TalkTalk Online Community Department
TalkTalkplc
www.talktalkmembers.com/forums

[Minus273]

step don't call BT's technical support when you are already in a bad mood. DH told me off yesterday when I hung up on them . I called because service had cut out completely. They asked me if I knew what a cable was, said 'You do know it need to be plugged in don't you' and then suggested I go find a man and call back because he would be better able to understand their instructions. . I hung up and fixed it myself, just lucky it wasn't the line outside that was the problem.